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Wednesday, 14 March 2012

Amazing Hitchslap Index: part 2

Here is the next instalment of 'The Amazing Hitchslap Index', summarising the content of the next 7 of the 66 'Hitchslaps' uploaded to Youtube by Loy Machedo as explained here. For each Hitchslap,
I summarise the content in the form of direct quotations and summaries,
list co-stars and 'authorities' called upon. This series should help
you to find that one perfect Hitchslap to send to someone who you are debating.

Christopher Hitchens on the subject of Billy Graham

Hitchslap 08: This so called merciful god 1:52
[What does your anti-theism have to offer in the way of dignity hope to those who are not as strong or intelligent as you?]
...not just deist belief in a creator but theist belief in someone who knows and watches and cares.
Fraulein Freisel  kept in a dungeon - Imagine how she must have prayed, beseeched heaven for 24 years.
Heaven watched with indifference because that score will later be settled.
So it was well worth her going through it. She'll have a better time next time
Co-stars: Panel of many,
Cited: Fraulein Friesel, (Austria)
Link: http://youtu.be/X4zYYYp9cB0

Hitchslap 09: Rev. Billy Graham was an evil man 1:25
Billy Graham  a disgustingly evil man.
Anti-Semitism an unfailing sign of a sick and disordered person, horrible conspiratorial, pseudo-intellectual mean-spirited, eventually lethal piece of bigotry.
Richard Nixon  squalid little bigot  outmatched by the way that Billy Graham talks.
Goes round spouting lies to young people for a living  what a horrible career.
(This is included in Hitchslap 36.)
Co-stars: In Depth
Cited: Billy Graham, Richard Nixon, ,
Link: http://youtu.be/YeUYvyn2eBQHitchslap 10: Why Heaven wouldn't be a heaven at all 1:56
Wish to be a slave. Desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crimes while you are asleep .
Total surveillance of your life around the clock. Every waking and sleeping moment.
The real fun begins after you are dead.
A celestial North Korea  a necrocracy. A thanetocracy. One short of a trinity
At least you can fucking die and leave North Korea. Does Koran or Bible offer you that liberty? No! The tyranny misery, utter ownership of your entire personality, smashing of your individuality only begins at the point of death.
Co-stars:
Cited: Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sun
Link: http://youtu.be/igZSUofDi1A

Hitchslap 11: The teachings of Christianity are immoral 3:20
Is it moral to believe that our sins can be forgiven by the punishment of another person?
I submit that the doctrine of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is utterly immoral.
Compulsory love is another sickly element of Christianity
I'll pay your debts but can't take away your responsibilities.
Scape-goating  a positively immoral doctrine that demolishes the concept of personal responsibility on which all ethics and morality must depend.
I am told that I have to have a share in this human sacrifice even though it took place before I was born.
I had no say in it happening. I wasn't consulted. Had I been present I would have been bound to do my best to stop the public torture and execution of an eccentric preacher.
Sin of Adam in Genesis
This may sound a mad belief but it is the Christian belief.
To connect meteorology to morality seems to me flat out idiotic whichever way you do it.
Fisher - Nuclear war will only hasten our transition into a more blessed state.
Another immoral and sinister thing about religion is that lurking under it at all times in every one of its versions is a desire for this life to come to an end.
What is it like to lie to children for a living and to tell them that there is an authority that they must love.
Co-stars:
Cited: Bishop of Carlisle, Jeffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury
Link: http://youtu.be/SVwTrq_XoQUHitchslap 12: Blackmail and extortion, Christian style 2:57
[Possibility of transformation being offered to me but not imposed upon me]
Not imposed??
What if you reject the offer that took place by means of the torture to death of a human being?
I don't want it. Oh you don't? Well you have to go to hell.
This has been preached to children. . . by gruesome elderly virgins for centuries
Religious faith is not modest and humble but the reverse. It is unbelievably solipsistic.
To move from the deist position to the theist  to assume that we know about the mind of god. That we know what he wants us to eat and in what positions to make love or with whom.
Unbelievable piece of conceit . . . claiming to know things that they can not conceivably know.
If Dr McGrath has access to such extraordinary sources of information as the ones he has claimed I can't understand why he is only occupying a chair at Oxford University.
You don't know any more than I do. You couldn't know any more than I do. You can't. You just claim that you do.
Co-stars: Alistair McGrath
Cited:
Link: http://youtu.be/2G1_M8wDcw4Hitchslap 13: The Catholic Church is Evil 2:40
The pope, on March 12th 2000, begged forgiveness for the crusades, the inquisition, the persecution of Jews, injustice towards women (half the human race), the forced conversion of the indigenous people of S America, the African slave trade, the admission that Galileo was right, silence during Hitler's final solution, regret for the rape and torture of children.
These are very serious matters, not to be laughed off by reference to occasional work of charity.
Most loving pastoral care . . . well I'm sorry they have already had that.
Anti-Semitism was official Catholic doctrine until 1964.
Will one day be admitted that it might have been in error to say that AIDS is bad but not quite as bad as condoms are bad. Or not as immoral in the same way.
Preachings of his church are responsible for the death of millions of people in Africa
A child made in the image of god. Oh no you are not you're a faggot.
. . . clutch of hysterical sinister virgins
Co-stars:
Cited: Joseph Ratzinger, Galileo, Hitler, Stephen Fry, Catholicism in Africa
Link: http://youtu.be/3eLzjzAW9KAHitchslap 14: Shame theres no hell for Fallwell to burn in. 3:47
Falwell established a business, a racket. A hereditary job.
Rid of an extremely dangerous demagogue who lived by hatred and prejudice.
Treason of saying that USA deserved the attack upon it in 2001.
A pity there isn't a hell for him to go to
Discovery of the carcass of Rev Falwell was of zero significance.
You, no doubt, as a Christian, require hypocrisy of people.
Made a career out of sponsoring dislike and superstition.
Said people he didn't like would go to hell.
Took up all the time with your long and rather unlettered question.
I think his death is a deliverance.
Co-stars: Hannity & Colmes
Cited: Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reid
Link: http://youtu.be/xgd-fCepI5k

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